Bruce Auld, From Diesel Fitter to a National Business Role

Bruce Auld, Komatsu Australia's National Business Development Manager, Product Management/Components, has worked for the company since September 1988, when, a diesel fitter by trade, he literally walked in off the street into then Victorian dealer Forcepower's Campbellfield premises looking for a job.

The service manager ask me when I could start, and I went into a service vehicle, looking after machines all over the state; that was one of the best jobs I ever had.

After 12 months in that role, I was put into my first leadership/management role, as Melbourne Field Service Supervisor in what was one of the largest field service operations in the country.

In 1993, I took on the job of Melbourne Service Manager, which I held until 1998, when I applied for the role of service manager at Sherwood in Brisbane.

In 2006, I started in management roles in our Reman operation, three years ago taking on the role of National Product Manager for Reman, as well as for KMG and KAC parts.

Today, we are now seeing Komatsu Australia's ADS (apprentice development scheme) generation coming through, and I think we are really going to see some positive changes from that.

From a service operations point of view, it's one of the best things we have ever done.

We are turning out highly skilled young people, and I'd like to give credit to the vision of people such as Gavin Manning, Paul Richardson, Jim Playsted, Ian MacCowan who had the foresight to develop our next generation of service people and our young managers of the future.